Inspired by this topic/thread,http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=30&p=632729#p632652=======It is not just this one , but there are several, (to many to list) personsthat are mis-using the "full quote" feature, in excess and with out reason. There is no need , or point in "full quoting" the previous post , every timeyou reply to a post,...and it does fill the forum up with a lot of unnecessarilyrepeated posts, over and over. More to be added later-------

Not to mention that it totally defeats the purpose of quoting in the first place (to address a specific point in the quoted text).

Plus, it gets dramatically worse the longer the thread goes. Poster #2 full quotes the OP, and then Poster #3 full quotes Poster #2, ad infinitum, and of course each new quote contains an additional copy of the initial post; the noise becomes overwhelming very quickly.

On another forum , one of the mods got so "fed up" with it, in this case it was mostly just one individual, but after asking the person nicely several times did not work,...The mod started editing the posts, and removing any "full quotes", and leaving a note: IE:

edited "full quote" removed

Occasionally a new member might use a "full quote" inappropriately but afterbeing asked not to do that most cooperated pretty well. Of course the "one guy", started getting furious because every time they full quoted, and it really was unnecessary, he was doing this every time he repliedto a post, even when it was the reply, immediately following the post. And the post might only be 1 line of text,... For example, like your post, my reply , no need to full quote your post, and say thank you.

About the only time I can think of when a "full quote' is needed and maybeshould be used is when the topic goes into a 2nd or more pages, sometimesit is use full then, to "full quote" the original post on the first page,...or perhapsfull quote the last post that is being relied to,...so there is something on the second page , referring to the previous page, which no longer can be seen onthe new page. Hope that makes sense. If any one is not sure about how to use the "quote boxes", instead of the "QUOTE" button, There is some explanation here:http://forums.debian.net/faq.php?mode=bbcode#f2r0BBCODE in general, and what it is: http://forums.debian.net/faq.php?mode=bbcode

I suspect what is happening may be that many people are using the "QUOTE", button as a "REPLY" button,..And that becomes a "habit" they should be using the"REPLY" button, and then if there is text in a previous post they want to quote, use the "quote boxes" as explained in the above links.

The "REPLY" button is in the upper left corner, The "Quote" button is on the right side,..along with the "Report, Delete, " butons.

Paste the text between: [quote] Garry> then if there is text in a previous post [/quote]

Looks like this:

Garry>then if there is text in a previous post

Some times I do find the "Full Quote", or "QUOTE" button use full so that I have the full post , in the reply editor,..where I can see it and easily cut/copy/pasteany text or part needed into the "quote boxes", but then when I am done, I remove the unwanted "full quote" part. A good practice is to use the "Preview" button, before actually submitting the post as well, and look it over, Does it look nice ? Is the code or scripts,and erroroutput correct, and easy to read ?, Etc,... proof read the post before submitting. I know that takes some extra effort and time, and some times we still miss something,... I got a PM today, asking me if there was a reason for the theway I linked to another topic,...and no there wasn't a reason, fortunately somebody PM'd me, and I corrected my error,.... Any way, if anybody is still not sure how to quote correctly, this would be theplace to ask.

I had something similar occur on a mailing list, where when I replied I removedthe link the OP had put in at the bottom of the question,..... The post, I think really was more like spam, and disguise, for the excuse toinclude the link, but in any event since it had been posted once, I did not seeany need to include it in my reply, The OP got very upset, even though I gave a good answer, with the solution to a very basic problem. My reply included the OP's question, but not the link they posted,...the responseto me, made it clear to me , the original question/post, was really spam,..theydid not acknowledge that the answer was good, but made a big issue about the link being removed, "What is this ? Censorship,...bla bla,.." Any way, I no longer subscribe to that mailing list, not because of just that , butthe volume of spam was/is very high, and it seems like they support that,...butthat is another topic,....

by rovernut »No good deed goes unpunished.

"And nobody can please every body, all of the time" In any event, if any body complains, and tries to accuse you of "trying to change what the said",...You can just refer them to this topic.

Everything depends on the situation, I am sure sometimes it would be betterto use a "full quote" instead of just selecting part of it, but that is "sometimes", and not a good reason to all ways full quote every post one replies to. Another option, instead of "full quote", include a link to the specific post,... For example :Dasein wrote: If the reader wants to, they can see what he said, just clicking the "Dasein wrote".

LQ doesn't automatically allow nested quotes - one way to (partly) avoid the prob.checking if the quote is an unaltered full quote of the previous post is possible, but would require additional resources and functionality that isn't part of the forum software, i guess.

so it's a question of the code of conduct and ultimately up to the admins again ...

but there's one situation where i like to use - more or less - full quotes: a few times, when i criticized someone in strong terms, they later removed the offending content from the original post and "innocently" lamented my cruelty. from that i learned to always quote back what i'm criticizing.

dasein wrote:Not to mention that it totally defeats the purpose of quoting in the first place (to address a specific point in the quoted text).

Yeah, that's the most important thing right there, and also to some extent the mis-attribution of quotes that may come either from trying to prune nested quotes incorrectly or by breaking some tag somewhere.

Anyway I think we should try to be understanding of the fact that proper formatting of messages or e-mails and the like can be confusing to people who are not well-versed (particularly when markup is involved), and that it can be a pointless battle to try and make people learn.And I mean even if this is a tech-oriented forum.

To this point…

GarryRicketson wrote:On another forum , one of the mods got so "fed up" with it, in this case it was mostly just one individual, but after asking the person nicely several times did not work,...The mod started editing the posts…

I think that a mod's job could/should include post polishing not as a last resort after becoming fed up, but as a day-to-day chore.I understand it would tax mods' workload but my point would be more about them doing it when they can as they see the need for it, rather than them having to patrol each thread to fix ever single minor issue, so I don't think it would be a great imposition on them.Also the point being that polishing users' posts to fix broken bbcode tags or overly nested and/or mis-attributed quotations is not like editing content or censoring.

In the the end however, whatever we do as single users by our own initiative or as a community effort, I think it is important to not make the whole thing about "fixing people" but just keeping it about fixing posts.

Bye

PSKeep in mind the fact that in some cases quoting a full post could be a measure to fight against people who later delete or alter their shit.